In gas-condensate reservoirs, gas productivity declines due to the increasing accumulation of liquids in the near wellbore region as the bottom-hole pressure declines below the dew point pressure. This phenomenon occurs even in reservoirs containing lean gas-condensate fluid. Various methods were addressed to remediate the productivity decline, for example, fracturing, gas injection, solvent injection and chemical treatment. Among them, gas injection techniques have been used as options to prevent retrograde condensation by vaporizing condensate and/or by enhancing condensate recovery in gas-condensate reservoirs. It is of utmost importance that the behavior of liquid accumulation near the wellbore should be described properly as that provides a better understanding of the productivity decline due to the originated from impaired relative mobility of gas.
In this research, several gas injection techniques were assessed by using compositional simulators. The feasibility of different methods such as periodic hot gas injection and gas reinjection using horizontal wells were assessed using different reservoir fluid and injection conditions. It is shown that both the temperature and composition of the injection fluids play a key role in the remediation of productivity and condensate recovery. The combined effect of these parameters were investigated and the resulting impact on gas and condensate production was calculated by numerical simulations in this study. Design parameters pertaining to field development and operations including well configuration and injection/production scheme were also investigated in this study along with the above parameters.
Based on the results, guidelines on design issues relating gas injection parameters were suggested. The various simulation cases with different parameters helped with gaining insight into the strategy of gas injection techniques to remediate the gas productivity and condensate recovery.